


Winter Lives on in You, Bleeding into Spring

by angededesespoir



Category: Bleach
Genre: (I guess?) - Freeform, Alcohol, Gen, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 21:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8939950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angededesespoir/pseuds/angededesespoir
Summary: Shunsui takes his adopted son to visit Ukitake's grave on Ukitake's birthday.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [Fic. from [August 6th](http://angededesespoir.tumblr.com/post/148568934750/winter-lives-on-in-you-bleeding-into-spring) that I'm finally getting around to posting here. This was originally untitled.]
> 
> I wrote this around the time we learned of Ukitake's fate.

He sits by stone chilled by biting wind and lumps of snow.

There’s tea- _his_ favourite kind- burning its’ way down their throats, the sake he mixed into his own cup proving bitter once again. It lost its’ sweetness with the parting.

In the corner of his eye he sees wisps of white, gently flowing in the breeze, blending in with the snow, as he once did. He smiles at the memory- hide and seek and snow ball fights, a stray ball hitting old man Yama in the head. A punishment that wasn’t punishment at all, because they were at eachothers’ side.

 

Everything is calm…..until it is not. 

When he hears the coughing and feels the spike in reiatsu, his heart seizes, but then, in an instant that felt like all the centuries of his life, everything calms and he’s okay and Shunsui remembers and breathes again.

The boy is apologizing for making him worry. _‘He would do that, too.’_ And Shunsui simply smiles, turns his face away to hide the flood blurring and burning his eye, threatening to spill. He takes another sip, suggests they should drink up before they and the tea both grow as cold as their surroundings. 

 

_It was seven years ago, when he was out on a mission. For once he could not bear to be idle. The only thing that kept him going anymore was work, duty- the endless to-do list and the complications that arose each time something was thought to be settled._

_He did not have to go, but something compelled him._

_When he came to the tree, barren, there was the form underneath- the figure small, tinged blue in the cradle of snow, the hair the same unusual, beautiful white. The child made no sound as he wrapped the flowers around him and pressed him to his chest._

 

He sits here now, 7 years older. A blink in his life, but an eternity in the boy’s. He has already grown so much, is so much stronger, is learning something new everyday. He is not exactly like him, can’t fill the void, but it is enough. 

The boy is smiling, telling him how he can’t wait for the plum blossoms to herald the end of winter, can’t wait for the water to unfreeze so he can gaze at the koi - so much larger and more beautiful than the year last!- closer.

Shunsui thinks of the man who loved the same, who longed to chase a child through spring gardens, tickle their belly in summer grass, whisper to them the reason the seasons needed to change, why the leaves needed to die, how life could bloom in the middle of winter.

He traces the stone, now warm, and rises.

“Come, Juushiro, before Nanao-chan hits us both with her books!” 

The boy chases after him, grabs the gentle hand of callous and scars..

He forgets his cup, and so does Shunsui.

Steam rises. Two cups, half-full, contents mingling in the air… if only for a little while.


End file.
